UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY CHARLES A. SINK, PRESIDENT THOR JOHNSON, GUEST CONDUCTOR LESTER MCCOY, ASSOCIATE CONDUCTOR
Second Concert 1947-1948 Complete Series 2959
Second Annual Extra Concert Series
CLEVELAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA GEORGE SZELL, Conductor
SUNDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 9, 1947, AT 7:00 HILL AUDITORIUM, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
PROGRAM
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 SCHUMANN Andante; allegro Romanza Scherzo Finale: largo, allegro
"Dance of the Seven Veils" from the Opera, "Salome" . . STRAUSS
INTERMISSION
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 BEETHOVEN Poco sostenuto; vivace Allegretto Presto; trio: assai meno presto Allegro con brio
NOTE: The University Musical Society has presented the Cleveland Orchestra on previous occa sions as follows: March 28, 1935; November 9, 1937; November 7, 1938; November 9, 1941; No vember 8, 1942, Artur Rodzinski, conductor; November 7, 1943, Erich Leinsdorf, conductor; Novem ber 12, 1944, George Szell, guest conductor; November 11, 1945, Erich Leinsdorf, conductor; November 10, 1946, George Szell, conductor.
ARS LONGA VITA BREVIS PROGRAM NOTES by GEORGE H. L. SMITH
Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 . . . ROBERT SCHUMANN Schumann composed this symphony in 1841 at Leipzig and revised it in 1851 at Diisseldorf. The earlier version was introduced by Ferdinand David at the Gewand- haus in Leipzig, December 6, 1841; the revision was first performed at a concert of the Allgemeine Musikverein in Geisler Hall, Diisseldorf, on March 3, 1853, Schumann conducting from the manuscript. Schumann wrote his D-minor symphony during the happy year that followed his marriage to Clara Wieck. It was a year full of bliss for them both, and a year which saw the creation of some of Robert's finest music. Composed within a few months after the completion of the "Spring" Symphony, it is close to it in the tender exaltation of its mood, the exuberance born of Schumann's full realization of his manhood and his symphonic power. Like the "Spring" Sym phony, it has been termed a "nuptial" symphony. Unfortunately the symphony was not greeted with the same success that had attended the performance of the "Spring" Symphony, and Schumann laid it aside. He offered it to a publisher in 1843 as his "Second Symphony, Op. 50" but without result. Not until 1851 did he take the score up again—after he had composed and published the Second Symphony (1846) and the Third (1850)—revising and reorches- trating it in response to urgent requests from his friends. The symphony is scored for woodwinds in pairs, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tympani, and strings.
"Dance of the Seven Veils" from the Opera, "Salome" . RICHARD STRAUSS Salome", drama in one act, written in French by Oscar Wilde, was published in 1893. When Strauss penned the controversial pages of Salomi, he was already a com poser of accomplishment and reputation. Nearly all of his symphonic poems had been composed and performed, and several of them were already enjoying a con siderable vogue. At this time Strauss' reputation was based on his orchestral and not his operatic music. Only two stage-works had come from his pen, the early Guntram (1892-93) and Feuersnot (1900-01), and they in no way prepared the public for such a score as Salome, in which an orchestra of over one hundred musicians was called upon to join with singers in presenting a dramatic tone poem requiring two hours without break to tell its terrifying story of lust and murder. It was only natural that SalomS, receiving its first performance at the Dresden Court Opera on December 9, 1905, should fan into flame the controversies about Strauss then smoldering in the musical centers of Europe and America. A work so "advanced" would have had such a result without the heightening effect of a subject so erotic and sensational in character. Within a year, the opera had been produced on thirty European stages. On January 22, 1907, the Metropolitan Opera Company, then under the direction of Heinrich Conried, mounted the work. Olive Fremstad sang the title role and Alfred Herz conducted. There was only one performance. The opera was withdrawn for the sufficient reason that it was "detrimental to the best interests of the Metropolitan." The enterprising Mr. Hammerstein revived the opera at his pioneering Manhattan Opera House in New York on January 28, 1909, just two years after the Metropolitan's fiasco. Mary Garden, appearing as Salome, scorned Mme Fremstad's use of a sub stitute for the "Dance of the Seven Veils" and danced the famous measures herself. The "Dance of the Seven Veils" is scored for three flutes and piccolo; two oboes, English horn and heckelphone; four clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet; three bassoons and contrabassoon; six horns; four trumpets; four trombones and tuba; tympani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, castanets, tam-tam, xylophone, glockenspiel and celesta; two harps and strings.
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 . . LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Beethoven completed his Seventh Symphony in the summer of 1812. The first performance took place on December 8, 1813, in the large hall of the University of Vienna at a concert organized by Malzel for the benefit of Austrian and Bavarian soldiers wounded in the battle of Hannau. The Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Symphonies of Beethoven are related not only in sequence but by their consistent freedom from the conflict that rocked the mighty structures of the Eroica and the Fifth, and was to find even more intense expression in the Ninth. The Seventh Symphony, while standing late on the list of symphonies, is not actually a late work for Beethoven. It was finished before he had celebrated his forty-second birthday; he still had fifteen years before him—years in which an artist usually reaches full maturity. (Brahms was forty-three when he gave the world his First Symphony; he wrote the other three between his forty-third and fifty-second years.) Beethoven had allowed four years to pass between the Pastoral and the Seventh; the Eighth was to be ready by October, 1812-—within a few months after the completion of the Seventh. No less than eleven years were to elapse before the composer would be ready with the hard-won score of the Ninth. Beethoven completed the Seventh Symphony in the summer of 1812, probably on the thirteenth of May. A careless binder, snipping all but the opening stroke of the first letter from the score, left the month perpetually in doubt. If it were June or July, the miracle of the Eighth Symphony, completed by October, would be all the more wonderful. But this year of 1812 was at any rate a productive one for Beetho ven, and an important one. It was the year that left us with the tantalizing question of the "Immortal Beloved," the year of Beethoven's meetings with Goethe at Teplitz, that delightful watering place near Prague. The Beethoven of 1812 was a man of great fame and adequate, if poorly managed, income. He was still able to conduct, although his deafness made it impossible for him to hear any but the louder orches tral sounds. He was yet to undertake the cares of guardianship that were to harass him during the rest of his life. Sketches for the Seventh Symphony first appear in a sketchbook of 1809 when the theme of the Allegretto is clearly set forth, but there is no way of tracing the course of germination, and conjecture alone will tell where the symphony was written. Grove thinks that Beethoven actually set to work on the score at Teplitz in the early fall of 1811. It was probably completed in Vienna. The score calls for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, kettledrums, and the customary strings. The dedication is to Count Moritz von Fries. CONCERTS SET SVANHOLM, lienor Friday, November 14 WESTMINSTER CHOIR Monday, November 24 JOHN FLNLEY WILLIAMSON, Conductor DON COSSACK CHORUS Tuesday, December 2 SERGE JAROFF, Conductor
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA .... Monday, December 8 SERGE KOUSSEVLTZKY, Conductor MYRA HESS, Pianist Saturday, January 10
MINNEAPOLIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA . (7:00 P.M.) Sunday, February 15 DLMITRI MITROPOULOS, Conductor
DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA .... Monday, February 23 KARL KRUEGER, Conductor GEORGES ENESCO, Violinist Tuesday, March 2 ALEXANDER BRAILOWSKY, Pianist . . . . Wednesday, March 10
CINCINNATI SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA .... Thursday, March 18 THOR JOHNSON, Conductor Single Concerts (inc. tax): $3.00—$2.40—$1.80—$1.50. Christmas Concerts "MESSIAH" (Handel)—Saturday, December 13, at 8:30 P.M., and Sunday, December 14, at 2:30 P.M. FRANCES YEEND, Soprano; MARY VAN KIRK, Contralto; HAROLD HAUGH, Tenor; MARK LOVE, Bass; University Choral Union; Special "Messiah" Orchestra; FRIEDA OP'T HOLT VOGAN, Organist; LESTER MCCOY, Conductor. Tickets (inc. tax): 70 cents and 50 cents. Chamber Music Festival PAGANLNI STRING QUARTET—Three concerts, January 16 and 17, 1948 HENRI TEMIANXA and GUSTAVE ROESEELS, Violins; ROBERT COURTE, Viola, and ROBERT MAAS, Violoncello. Tickets (inc. tax): $3.60 and $2.40 Friday Evening at 8:30 L'Estra Harmonico ...... VIVALDI Quartet, Op. 130 ...... BEETHOVEN Quartet No. 1, Op. 7 BARTOK Saturday Afternoon at 2:30 Quartet No. 3, Op. 64 HAYDN Quartet No. 5 ...... CHEVREULL Quartet No. 4, Op. 18 ...... BEETHOVEN Saturday Evening at 8:30 Quartet, Op. 64, No. 5 ('The Lark") HAYDN Quartet No. 2 ...... MLLHAUD Quartet, Op. 132 ...... BEETHOVEN
For tickets or for further information, please address: Charles A. Sink, President, University Musical Society, Burton Memorial Tower.